Farmworker legal aid group relocates office to Vista

6  After more than 20 years in Oceanside, the North County office of the California Rural Legal Assistance has moved to Vista, where leaders hope the new location will make it easier for farmworkers to find legal aid.

The organization provides free legal services to low-income farmworkers in the area helping them to resolve labor, wage, housing and other disputes, said Prairie Bly, the group’s directing attorney in Vista.

Farmworkers living and working further inland in North County previously had a difficulties getting to the Oceanside office, Bly said. Many earn little money and don’t own a vehicle, she said.

“We hope that this move will make it easier for migrant workers to access services,” Bly said.

Before the new Vista office opened in April, the nonprofit was housed in the second floor of a building at 215 South Coast Highway. Elderly farmworkers with disabilities had a difficult time climbing the stairs to the office, Bly said.

The new Vista office at 640 Civic Center Drive, Suite 108, is at ground level and is more accessible to people with disabilities. It’s also closer to public transportation, such as buses and the Sprinter light rail system, which has a stop at Civic Center Drive just south of the office.

On Wednesday, the organization held an open house to announce and help promote its new location.

“We’re still trying to get the word out that we’ve moved,” Bly said. “But we’ve already gotten more clients from Escondido.”

Bly is one of two attorneys working in the Vista office. She joined the organization two years ago after the former directing attorney, Dorothy Johnson, left to take another job.

The California Legal Rural Assistance was created as a nonprofit organization in 1966. It provides legal assistance to about 40,000 low-income farmworkers a year through its 21 offices statewide.